The Nationals have announced that recently activated LHP Mike Gonzalez has been recalled to Washington after making his season debut with the Syracuse Chiefs on Friday night, bypassing longtime LHP Atahualpa Severino.

To make room on the Washington roster, RHP Ryan Perry was optioned back to Syracuse after posting a 10.13 ERA and a 1.75 WHIP over seven appearances with the parent club. RHP Drew Storen was transferred from the 15-day DL to the 60-day DL to clear space on the 40-man roster.

Naturally, it’s worth noting that LHP Atahualpa Severino was bypassed by this move for a left-handed reliever. Since being added to the 40-man roster in November 2009, the 27-year-old Dominican has made just six appearances — all coming last September.

Yunesky Maya, one of several candidates for the back end of the Washington Nationals rotation, made his case with two scoreless innings as the Washington Nationals doubled up the Florida Marlins, 8-4.

Maya struck out three and allowed two hits, featuring his curveball and throwing 23 pitches, 16 for strikes. He also started a 1-6-3 double play in his second inning of work (the fifth) and was credited with a hold.

Offensively, the Nationals were paced by another four-run outburst, this time in the second inning and highlighted by a three-run blast by Roger Bernadina.

No prospects got the start, as projected bench player Jerry Hairston Jr. manned 2B instead of Danny Espinosa and non-roster invitee Michael Aubrey took 1B as Adam LaRoche once again was the DH.

Other notable prospects…

Bryce Harper drew a walk and scored a run while pinch-hitting for Laynce Nix in his first at-bat and flew out to deep LCF in his second at-bat.

Wilson Ramos followed Jesus Flores as the team’s backstop and went 0-for-1. No baserunners attempt to steal against him.

Atahualpa Severino threw a 1-2-3 seventh inning and finished the inning with a caught-looking strikeout.

Tomorrow, a split-squad team travels to Jupiter, Florida to visit the St. Louis Cardinals.

It’s been said that AAA is no longer where you’ll find the best prospects. As alluded to last week, some of this is because major-league teams now use AAA as an extension of its 40-man roster, i.e. it’s a taxi squad. But the 40-man roster has been in place since 1968, which begs the question: Why has this changed in the last decade or two? Unfortunately, there’s no pat answer.

My personal theory is that it stems from three developments that all happened in the 1990s: expansion (which created four more teams), the rebirth of independent baseball (which froze the number of affiliated teams at 160), and the advent of a three-man arbitration panel (which made it somewhat easier for players to “win” their cases).

Thus, it might be a little unfair to chastise the Syracuse Chiefs for having fewer prospects than an old maid. The landscape has changed such that there’s a financial incentive for teams to keep marginal major-leaguers (a.k.a. 4A’s) on board to fill holes and keep prospects down until they’re “really needed.” It’s become an annual rite of spring to discuss which prospects will be sent to AAA to avoid “Super Two” status, resulting in some rather comical attempts to deny it.

Thus, in an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, I’m going to focus on the players that were league-average age or younger and were also among the upper third or so in terms of usage. But first, let’s do our look at the team as a whole against the rest of the league…

HITTING

TEAM

AB

R

H

HR

BB

SO

AVG

OBP

SLG

GPA

SB

Syracuse

4715

595

1190

110

487

1089

.252

.327

.387

.244

161

Lg. Avg.

4847

648

1274

127

455

1024

.263

.330

.410

.251

111

Italics = League TrailerBold = League Leader

PITCHING

TEAM

IP

ERA

R/G

WHIP

HR

BB

SO

H/9IP

BB/9IP

K/9IP

K/BB

Syracuse

1255⅔

3.84

4.17

1.337

115

440

932

8.9

3.2

6.7

2.12

Lg. Avg.

1261⅔

4.15

4.51

1.370

127

455

1024

9.1

3.2

7.3

2.25

Italics = League Trailer

A very similar pattern to the Harrisburg Senators in terms of hitting and pitching: upper-third for the latter, lower-third for the former, middle-of-the pack on defense in the biggest categories (runs scored, runs allowed, errors committed). Syracuse actually outperformed their pythagorean projection by five games. It’s not hard to pinpoint where that may have come from, as you’ll note that the Chiefs led the league in steals (and caught stealing) which is a hallmark of Trent Jewett’s teams: He likes to run (something to remember very shortly).

Unlike the Senators, the Syracuse Chiefs faded in the second half, as one might expect from a pitching staff that was tapped for injury replacements by the parent club. But in the new world order, that’s its purpose. It’s also fair to state that most of the players that were called up from the lower levels were either sent right back down (i.e. filling in) or were of the marginal variety that could, would, and were used interchangeably at AA and AAA.

That said, let’s look at the players that fit the mold of not-the-oldest (under league-average), and used a fair amount (roughly: 100PA, 30IP, with two exceptions). The full team statistics can be found here.

Name

Age

Position(s)

G @ Pos

Fld%

Err

PA

GPA

Boomer Whiting

26

LF/CF

59/34

1.000

0

375

.246

Leonard Davis

26

LF/RF/3B/2B

47/30/13/8

.981

4

361

.256

Justin Maxwell

26

CF/RF

59/5

.966

5

272

.285

Pedro Lopez

26

SS/2B/3B/P

43/7/4/1

.960

8

170

.208

Danny Espinosa

23

SS/2B

17/7

.979

2

108

.273

Wilson Ramos

22

C

18

1.000

0

82

.277

With possible exception of Pedro Lopez, most of these names are quite familiar to followers of the Nationals farm system. The one that was probably the biggest surprise was obviously Boomer Whiting, who made the jump from A+ to AAA while taking up switch-hitting at the same time. As aforementioned, Jewett likes his guys to run and Whiting thrived in a situation where he was asked to do what he does best.

On to the pitchers, in our abbreviated format..

PLAYER

AGE

G/GS

W-L, SV

ERA

IP

H

BB

SO

WHIP

HBP

WP

Shairon Martis

23

27/27

8-7, 0

4.09

152

156

60

99

1.421

2

2

Erik Arnesen

26

21/18

6-8, 0

3.95

107

107

31

70

1.290

7

8

Jeff Mandel

25

25/15

5-6, 0

4.75

94⅔

120

33

60

1.616

6

1

Josh Wilkie

25

53/1

4-4, 8

2.45

69⅔

57

22

62

1.134

2

3

Collin Balester

24

35/5

3-3, 0

5.87

69

74

32

52

1.536

3

7

Atahualpa Severino

25

54/0

6-3, 1

3.34

67⅓

60

29

46

1.322

5

1

Stephen Strasburg

21

6/6

4-1, 0

1.08

33⅓

18

7

38

0.750

0

1

Adam Carr

26

16/0

0-1, 9

2.08

21⅔

16

10

19

1.200

0

1

Stephen Strasburg and Collin Balester are the outliers among this bunch. Strasburg is one of those “Super Two” cases discussed previously. Balester may very well prove to be that rare case of a kid that was rushed up too soon but didn’t actually kill his career. But the rest are career minor-leaguers that are on the cusp of a cup of coffee.

Atahualpa Severino is already on the 40-man roster, and it would appear that Adam Carr and Cole Kimball are auditioning in the AFL for inclusion as well. Josh Wilkie is a very dark horse, but given the Joe Bisenius experience, it would appear that hard-thrower has the edge over the soft-tosser, even one that gave up just two home runs this past season, and five over his last 202 innings (since 2008).

OBLIGATORY TOP 5 LIST

The singular is no accident; I’m plucking five out of the total of 11 bats and arms above that still have rookie status (the site does have “prospects” in the name after all). As the name suggests, it’s a list of five guys that I think could possibly “get the call” and/or get put on the 40-man roster. Without further ado: